Installing 7-Zip used to be the first thing I did on any Windows PC because the OS couldn't open a RAR file, and that settled the argument. But now Windows 11 changed the rule, and 7-Zip suddenly looked like one more line item on the list of Windows 11 changes I make and the ones I tell people to skip. So I spent an afternoon trying to justify removing it.
File Explorer finally speaks RAR and 7z
Double-click a RAR on Windows 11 now, and it opens like a folder. No prompt, no download, no third-party installer. The same goes for 7z and for the tar variants that land on my PC whenever I pull something off a Linux system. Microsoft added that reading support in version 23H2 and has been widening the format list ever since.
Creating archives came next. Right-click a folder, hover over Compress to..., and Windows offers ZIP File, 7z File, and TAR File. Click Additional options instead, and a Create Archive window opens with real settings inside it.
Archive format lists 7zip, four flavors of tar, and ZIP. The compression method offers Store, Deflate, BZip2, LZMA1, LZMA2, and PPMd, with LZMA2 selected by default, and there are checkboxes for Retain symbolic links and Retain hard links.
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That is more control than any right-click menu has given me before, and it covers what most people do with archives most of the time.
Explorer still annoys me in other ways, which is why I keep a free file manager that finally gave me the layout I wanted pinned beside it. Explorer reads RAR but cannot write it, though that is not a mark against Windows. 7-Zip cannot create RAR files either.
Extract all took six times longer on my laptop
Convenience is one thing, so I went looking for numbers. I copied my Downloads folder into a test directory: 9.09GB spread across 7,869 files and 929 folders, a realistic mess of installers, PDFs, videos, and images.
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7-Zip packed that into a 6.12GB archive at its default Normal level using LZMA2. Then I extracted the same archive three times with each tool, deleting the output in between, on Windows 11 25H2 with Microsoft Defender running throughout.
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Which Windows 11 versions support creating 7z and TAR archives in File Explorer?
How do Windows 11's built-in archive settings affect compression size and speed?
How can you extract a split 7z archive when File Explorer does not recognize the .7z.001 file?
Can Windows 11 File Explorer open password-protected RAR or 7z archives?
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7-Zip 26.03 finished in 21.0, 19.6, and 20.2 seconds. File Explorer's Extract all took 2:10, 2:09, and 2:10. That works out to an average of 20.3 seconds against 129.7, or roughly 480MB/s compared to 75MB/s on the same drive.
My SSD is not the reason. It is a Gen 4 NVMe sitting in a Gen 3 slot, which still moves several gigabytes per second, and neither tool came close to saturating it. The gap lives in the software.
None of that makes Extract all useless. For a 40MB download or a handful of documents, the difference is a second or two, and I never reach for anything else. Once the archive runs to several gigabytes, though, I feel every one of those two minutes.
Passwords and split archives send me straight back to 7-Zip
This is where my uninstall plan fell apart. Look at that Create Archive window again and notice what is missing. It has no password field anywhere. Windows cannot encrypt an archive at all.
Opening encrypted archives goes no better. I built a password-protected 7z, double-clicked it, and Windows told me support for the encrypted archive was currently unavailable. Extract all fails the same way, with a wizard that says extracting this archive is not currently supported.
One detail stood out. If you leave Encrypt file names unticked when you build the archive, Explorer lists every file inside before refusing to extract any of them. Anyone who gets hold of that archive can read your file names without ever knowing the password.
7-Zip handles both cases. Right-click your folder, choose Show more options, then 7-Zip and Add to archive. Type your password into Enter password and Reenter password, leave Encryption method on AES-256, and check Encrypt file names so the listing stays hidden too.
Split archives fail even earlier. 7-Zip splits a set through the Split to volumes, bytes box in that same dialog. Right-click the resulting .7z.001 file in Explorer, though, and Extract all does not appear in the menu at all. Windows sees a file, not an archive.
7-Zip tests archives and opens what Explorer will not
Two more habits kept 7-Zip on my PC. The first is Test archive, sitting in that same Show more options menu. It walks the entire archive, verifies every checksum, and reports the packed size, the file count, and the line I want to see: There are no errors.
I run it before deleting an original folder. Explorer offers nothing comparable, so its idea of verification is extracting everything and hoping.
Testing has its limits, and I should be clear about them. Neither tool repairs a damaged archive. That job belongs to WinRAR, and even then only when the archive carries a recovery record.
The second habit is reach. 7-Zip opens ISO images, MSI packages, WIM files, VHDX disks, and NSIS installers, none of which Explorer treats as archives. Pulling a single driver out of a vendor installer without running that installer has saved me more than one afternoon. The same menu carries a CRC SHA submenu when I need a quick checksum.
Converting between formats still means extracting and repacking in either tool. 7-Zip gets there in fewer clicks.
7-Zip stays installed, but it lost most of its right-click menu
Explorer handles my everyday extraction now, so I trimmed 7-Zip back to the jobs it still wins. Open 7-Zip File Manager, head to Tools > Options > 7-Zip, and untick whatever you never use in the Context menu items list. If your right-click menu needs more than a trim, the open-source tool that rebuilt my Windows 11 context menu goes considerably further.
